Microsoft Photosynth has been shut down

It's a sad day, but we knew it was coming. We closed the Photosynth service and Web site today.

Key parts of the Photosynth code live on in other Microsoft products, and we're proud of the influence Photosynth had on photo technology across the industry during its nine-year life.

We hope that everyone who wanted to recover their synths and panoramas from the site were able to do so before the shutdown. As we announced earlier, Microsoft is not keeping a copy of them going forward. These were yours, and we had a license to them while the service was running.

Photosynth changed the way some of us went about capturing a memorable place. It was a unique way to document a location in a moment, and perhaps no moment ever surpassed the one we shared with the world in January 2008. Here's one frame from that great synth.

Thank you to the community who made Photosynth a great way to explore the unique places and moments of the last nine years.

To the various Photosynth teams over the years, at the Seadragon Software loft, Microsoft Live Labs offices at Smith Tower, Bing Maps, and beyond, thank you for your work.
I wish things could have lasted longer, but want to thank you for keeping the dream alive as long as you did.

Thank you for the openness and willingness to talk in public about how you built Photosynth and your technological philosophy.
Thanking each Photosynth team member would take too long, but thank you again for all of your work on this product.

To my fellow Photosynth users, I will very much miss being able to appreciate the views of the world that you shared with the rest of us.

To those in our community who went above and beyond and enabled the average user to save our Photosynth data and use it in other tools, showed what could be achieved with Photosynth data in other tools, or did your part to keep the Photosynth community lively, thank you so much for your contributions and keeping things interesting.